Classy Clara gunning to exit on top

The host Canadian Olympic team, led by Clara Hughes, enters the stadium during the Opening Ceremony in Vancouver, BC Friday, February 12, 2010 during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Photograph by: John Mahoney
, Canwest News Service

RICHMOND, B.C. —_She'll leave it to the rest of us — the rank sentimentalists — to tune up the violins and haul out faded photo albums, dust off the citations and scour the thesaurus for adjectives.

Clara Hughes will be too busy getting on with the rest of her life.

"It's unlike anything I'll ever have, that feeling, the feeling of being an Olympic athlete and having the chance to perform,'' the 37-year-old says. "Putting yourself out there on the line. You can't really explain. You can't duplicate it.

"It's going to be hard. I'm not kidding myself there. I understand that. But I'm a realist. I know when my time is up.''

Wednesday, it's up.

The women's 5,000 metres. A last Olympic race for Clara Hughes.

"That's nothing new,'' she counters, amused. "I've tried to race every Olympic race like it's my last because you never know what can happen. I skated the 5000 in Turin as if it might be my last chance. You have to.

"Personally, I take great comfort in that. This 5,000 is an opportunity in my life that I'll never have again. Something to be embraced, to be enjoyed. That kind of makes it very real for me. I have this one race, in my hands. And it's a gift. Because when it's done, it's done.

"No looking back.

"No going back.

"No changing anything.

"So it's a really motivating thing for me. I find it very liberating.''

She has, in her years in the public eye, become almost a cliche come to life, in the very best sense. The embodiment of everything the Olympic Games once stood for and, if you dig deep enough, look hard enough, past the commercials and commercialization, can still almost see.

Shifting seamlessly from summer to winter, from the cycling track to the skating oval, from Atlanta and Sydney to Salt Lake City and Turin and now Vancouver.

"Nothing,'' Hughes repeats, for perhaps the thousandth time, "can top being an Olympic athlete. The chance to skate in an Olympic Games here at home . . . I couldn't ask for a better way to leave. I've already done it once, in the 3,000, and it's something I'll never forget. That I get to do it again is truly a gift. It's something I don't lose sight of; I don't lose perspective on.

"I've been watching the Olympics for a week, all day, all night, on TV. Watching Jon Montgomery. You know what was great about that? When he won, he was himself. When Maelle Ricker won, she was herself. She had that boundless joy. When I watched Alexandre Bilodeau win, he was himself. When I watched Christine Nesbitt, my teammate, my friend, win, she didn't know what to do. That was great. Because that is Christine Nesbitt.

"Those people are real. They're themselves.

"To me, that's a reminder of what I think it means to truly rise to the occasion — not being anybody but who you are. That's what I've done in every Olympic race I've ever run and that's what I'm going to do now.''

Her exhausting, exhilarating, unforgettable night at the Oval Lingotto in Turin, pushing past pain and fatigue to end German Claudia Pechstein's 5,000-metre domination and three successive golds, just might've been the cameo keepsake of the 2006 Games, the Turin Games, the Cindy Games. It seems more than trifle presumptuous to hope she can possible top it Wednesday, even as she joins Jeremy Wotherspoon in retirement.

"I'm not thinking about any kind of ending, to be quite honest with you. I'm not thinking about outcome. If you're skating on that rink with an outcome hanging around your neck, maybe visualizing a medal, that's gravity. Gravity pulls you down, slows you down. I want to bring my best. That's all I'm concerned with.

"Whatever I do, wherever I finish, if I bring my best out on the ice, just like I did in the 3K, I'm pleased. That was an excellent race for me. That was everything I had. That's why I can truly be happy for every person that beat me. Truly. Because I fought.

"The only person I can ultimately please is me. That's my centeredness, I guess.''

Sure it's corny, old-fashioned, maybe even hopelessly out-of-date in an increasingly cynical world, but Clara Hughes has, during her time as a high-profile amateur athlete, come to represent the very best in us. How we see ourselves, or would like to.

That, even more than the five (maybe six?) medals, the Order of Canada, the adulation and the headlines, is what she will be most remembered for.

As legacies go, a person could do worse.

"I'm just so lucky,'' she is saying, as training for her final Olympic moment winds down. "I have one race left and I'm going to. But I am fully ready to move on. I've always enjoyed other things in my life. Sport is amazing but it doesn't define me. I'm a person who looks at the horizon, not in my rear-view mirror. What's ahead is what's interesting.

"I've always wanted to quit while I still love it and that's what I'm going to do.

"I've had so many incredible moments in my life thanks to sport. And while I haven't really taken the time to reflect, just the odd glimpse here or there, I can't help but step back and say: 'Wow! Was that actually me?!'

Almost Done!

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